I came across these cool things while surfing the web one afternoon, and from what I've researched, I see that they can be used in DIY routers. Am I right? What kind of software are you supposed to use on things like this? (I know Tomato and DD-WRT were built to replace the firmware on existing routers, and I think it's possible to install a full, albeit small, OS on a CF card, but I don't know anything more than that. Is it possible to build your own router with features comparable to, or even better than those found on commercially available routers?
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Also refer to @omglolbah's answer. The minibox hardware you mentioned is powered by AMD Geode processor, which is a x86-compatible OS, and you can install basically any linux distribution (or BSD, for the matter) to make it a router. minibox even supplies a tailormade distribution called imedia linux (http://www.mini-box.com/iMediaSDK?category=17) for these boards. What I didn't like, though, on these machine is that, they are not really much faster than a retail router fitted with custom firmware. +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Speed / Feature | Power | Size | Choice | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Doesn't matter / | Low | Small | Get a retail router | | Doesn't matter | (10W) | | | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Doesn't matter / | Low | Small | Get a retail router | | Complicated | (10W) | | and replace firmware | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Moderate / | Low | Small | Use small atom board | | Doesn't matter | (20W) | | use linux distros (1) | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Fast / | High | Small | Use mini-itx boards | | Complicated | (~80W) | | consider desktop grade | | | | | CPUs e.g. C2D, etc. | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Fast / | High | Rack | Consider commercial | | Complicated | (~80W) | | routers, e.g. those | | | | | from Cisco. | | | | | (esp. second hand) | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ | Fast / | High | Big | Get a modern desktop | | Complicated | (>100W) | | Computer and install | | | | | a router distribution | +-------------------+------------+------------+------------------------+ (1) See the wikipedia link above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_or_firewall_distributions The thing is, if you need to move data as fast as possible (i.e. saturating a Fast Ethernet or Gigabit ethernet port), you need a quick CPU to process the data, particularly if you are going to use (1) VPN and (2) firewall. By quick CPU i mean those CPU we use on desktop now. e.g. Core 2 Duo, Athlon II, etc. Note that you may also want to get a i5 processor instead because of the speedup given by AES-NI instructions by the cryptography software if you eventually do plan to use the router to perform some other task e.g. file transfer with SCP, future possibilities of AES-NI compatible VPN software, etc. |
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There is a myriad of linux distributions specifically tailored for this purpose. The hardware you link to should be more than sufficient for most of these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_or_firewall_distributions I myself used an old compaq presario 266mhz laptop with two NICs as a router for years until I upgraded to a big fat fileserver. Debian was the distro I used on the old machine, and I now run Ubuntu. With a few security packages installed most distributions can be used for a router though obviously the feature-set changes. |
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